Apologies up front if I’m not putting this across very clearly. I’m not very good at putting pen to paper but here goes....After waiting almost three years for our first occupation licence from Marbella town hall, we finally had a visit from them about three months ago. Everything was all good and all the works we carried out was done to plan but here’s our problem.....They are now saying that when our front wall was built (to their standards/regulations) the laws of 2010 were in force and now, the laws have been updated and the wall has to have 9cm chopped from the height plus, the verge in front of the wall has to be concreted over for disability reasons?? 9neither my husband or myself are disabled).Surely they cannot get away with this?Once this has all been done, they will finally issue the license. Here is a copy of the letter from our architects office to give you some idea......

Dear Jenny,Happy New year. I hope that are all well.We had received a new report from Tow Hall about First Ocupation License. This report say that house and pool are well, but the exterior wall and street must be change, with the actual local law.In others documents that we send before to town hall, we say to them that law for this wall and street next to your house is the law from 2010, the same permission for build your house and pool. But later the law changed.What is the problem? The problem now is that this law changed, and now the law is the same from 1986. This law say that the exterior wall must be solid to height of 1,30 meters from a floor, and later, diaphanous. A possible solution about this is make a little holes to wall, for convert to “diaphanous”.About street sidewalks, Town hall require that a person with wheelchair can pass for here. A possible solutions can be a white concrete.It is necessary change this in exterior wall and sidewalks for can to have first occupation license.

My advice , based on my own experiences and observations would be to carry out the specified work according to their instructions.

In the 'Long Run' I would suggest that it would be the fastest and cheapest solution and less stressful for you,and if you can avoid any 'conflict' with the various departments you will probably find that any future applications etc. will be no problem.

And Yes they can 'get away with this', they are following the law as they see it and it does happen in UK as well.....I Know .....

Good morning Gordon (the hermit!)Thank you for taking the time to reply. Your words echo my husbands words, he says the exact same thing so that’s what we will do although it’s so frustrating!By the way, have you ever heard of the term ‘diaphanous’??, it’s a new one to me!Once again, thank you, Jenny Jenny

I am curious about this as i have a friend who does not have "first occupation"

I am assuming based on what i read that the bottom of the said wall can be of concrete structure, what i think is meant by word "diaphanous"is that the higher part of wall needs to be porous type brick. I think the wheelchair thing is a pretty normal requirement these days.Can i as why the licence was not automatically issued when project completed?

Diaphonus in this instance will mean "Trellis Like". In Spain you see many ingenious ways of achieving this; the use of roofing tiles, water pipes and most commonly Slip bricks on end forming triangles trapped between horizontal rows to give stability. It is quite attractive, cast your eye about your neighbourhood, some are quite imaginative.Remember rule number one as well, Do not take on the town hall, you cannot win.

Thanks Country Boy I agree, it’s pointless trying to take on the town hall. There would be no chance of winning ~ not in a million years and as for the wall, I’m going to look around at ideas. I just realised what you mean by roof tiles forming triangles, I’ve seen that quite a lot.

Wollie: I had not heard about the license until our architect informed us that he had applied for it on our behalf at the end of all the building works. Apparently, you need this if you were to sell the property at a later date? I’m not sure, perhaps someone else can shed some light on it?As for the wall, it’s a solid concrete wall with a concrete kerb. In the kerb we have placed large white cobbles to deter dogs walking on it and using it as a toilet. I think we just have to remove the cobbles. It’s difficult dealing with all this when your not living there but as from the 9th March we will be there for six months and will hopefully get it sorted!By the way, we’ve been waiting over two years since the license was applied for. It’s taken all this time for the town hall to come out and inspect all the work. Apparently, they are extremely short staffed and there is a huge backlog!

Its certainly different to the Uk, the council inspect each stage of new building work regularly and only until the ground works have been passed can the building proceed..Having said that they are still passing some shoddy work!

Jenny,Thanks for that as it gives a clearer idea of how the Spanish system works, in the case i mention very simalier as the fact that there was no First Ocupation License only came to light about 5 years after the project was complete. This happened by accident when another person who was selling was showing my friend all the palerwork that they needed for selling, he has my head wrecked since and i said leave very well alone as they have no intention of selling. I ended up telling him that i did not want to talk about it anymore and if he wanted to go to the town hall i would not be part of this, thankfully i have not heard a word on this for over a year.You seem to have being very unlucky as they changed the rules.They have all sort of cutting devises these days so it be easy to chop a bit off the top and put in what ids needed by town hall.

If I read it correctly your solid wall is 1.39 Mtrs high above the ground level?You have been told to reduce the height to 1.30 Mtrs.Rather than cutting 9 cms off the top of the wall how about raising the ground level by 9 cms?

Hi Gerry,We can’t because the kerb on the outside is a metre wide between the wall and kerb which we filled with large white pebbles. We’ve been told that it also has to be changed to allow for wheelchair access.

Last edited by Jenny1960 on Mon Feb 26, 2018 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi Gerry,We can’t because the kerb on the outside is a metre wide between the wall and kerb which we filled with large white pebbles. We’ve been told that it also has to be changed to allow for wheelchair access.

Jenny said : I had not heard about the license until our architect informed us that he had applied for it on our behalf at the end of all the building works. Apparently, you need this if you were to sell the property at a later date? I’m not sure, perhaps someone else can shed some light on it?

Jenny - Apart from anything else the first occupation license is basically to declare that the finished construction is indeed habitable and conforms to necessary rules and regulations - ie fit for habitation ... and allows the temporary electrical source permitted to do the construction work, to be replaced by a permanent electric mains supply with contract etc ... seems a bit tardy to be issuing it at this late date - what are they doing at Marbella? Presumably you have indeed had a proper electric supply over the last three years?!!

This seems all a bit strange to me. I do remember that this project i am talking about when it was completed there was some sort of issue in regard to getting Electric supply. At the time someone went to the town hall and asked for some document (it is likely this first occupation)The town hall said they would not give, the town hall were then asked for a letter to say the house did not need this document and they would not do this.The owner at the time thought the town hall were just being difficult and the Electric company changed the temporary supply to permanent they were happy. I gather now from this and i have seen other threads on this that if the property was sold the new owners will need this document to have utilities put into their name.